Sage News and Discussion

Sage has really been dropping the ball on renewing our customers lately. They forgot to renew one of them and the customer tried calling in for support and was told they couldn't. The customer was livid with Sage and is demanding a free month of support for the oversight.

I got a phone call from Celina Oliver last week telling me this was my last chance to renew my Certified Trainer status. Supposedly notices went out in April and May - I didn't get either of them. At least she didn't charge me the late charge, but still odd - the info she sent me after renewing is going to the same email the renewal notices would have gone to...????? And, of course, I never get a Certified Consultant renewal notice - I just can't access my account one day and I realize that's what happened. (Two years in a row so far.)

We just wrestled a maintenance-renewal price from Sage for a customer whose maintenance is due in less than 2 weeks. The customer had not heard from Sage.

Because of so many ongoing issues with Sage: - Wrong renewal prices - AND refusal to honor them when the customer already paid (we literally have had Sage send us an updated price 2 weeks before due date then tell us to go to hell when we advise we just collected the money). - Very short lead time -- the last few months have been 30 days - Difficulty in getting accurate detailed pricing What I've decided is: a. We are only invoicing customers who are on Schulz Support for their Sage maintenance. From here forward dealing with Sage will be one component of support from Schulz. b. Customers who have ""parked"" their ROR with us but ""Never need to call so don't need a plan"" are on their own to pay Sage or not. We've had too many instances where we run around - usually last minute - to get quotes, updated pricing, ensure that Sage actually renewed (we've had one or two that were the same as Dawn where Sage ""forgot to renew""). I do not believe that I am the collection department for Sage (which is what we become when only given 30 day notice of the amounts) or their unpaid complaint department -- UNLESS the customer is on a Schulz Support agreement.

Your lucky they aren't blaming you. So much for Knowledgesync Sent from my iPad HD On Jun 18, 2012, at 10:38 AM, ""Dawn Anastasi"" <share@socialcast.com<mailto:share@socialcast.com>> wrote:

Mark, you actually expect Sage to use something they sell???????

I had to explain to another customer why they didn't get their invoice and they were incredulous that Sage didn't use Sage Software and instead used SAP.

Did you explain that Sage is a WORLD WIDE company comprised of many OPERATING divisions that don't talk to one another and that left hand within the same division and location often don't know what the right hand is doing??????

Sage is the new AT&T of customer service.

I get better service from AT&T

Wow @BethBowers ! In my past dealings with AT&T that does not say much for Sage...hahahah!

How about Motor Vehicles

@MarkChinsky - Department of Endless Lines is a good comparison for a company that can't get a quote done in less than 48 hours. What Lee left out of his post above is that the original renewal price we were given was about $9500, when last year's maintenance was about $4500. Sage finally settled on around $5400, and the customer still complained about the increase. @BethBowers - I agree - AT&T fixes their screwups much faster and with much less hassle than Sage does. Might have something to do with it not having to be kicked up to a Vice President to get anything fixed...

From our own experience with the renewals, I conclude these small items: - Nearly all missed notices were in Mar-Aprgil - Some divisions are doing better than others. Sage CRM billings were moved to Scottsdale from Canada; some notifications dropped in the transition. - items related to training centers, such as partner/consultant renewals have been erratic. Again, most of the problems we saw were Mar-Apr notices. But a new HRMS cert program double billed us: we paid via cc on SageU.com, and then HRMS sent us an invoice. When we barked back, they tried to fix it, but poor training resulted in a 2nd invoice, instead of a CM. So far, the notification problem really looks to me like a short-term ""system teething"" problem. From my view, though, it remains to be seen if the 90-day renewal quote cycle will be fixed. I'm not sure the internal incentives exist to enable partners to aggressively invoice. Until shown otherwise, I think Wayne's policy is rational.